hole

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /həʊl/, [həʊɫ], /hɒʊl/, [hɒʊɫ]
• Rhymes: -əʊl
• (US) IPA^(key): /hoʊl/, [hoʊɫ]

• Audio (US)

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• Audio (AU)

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• Rhymes: -oʊl
• Homophone: whole (depends on accent)

From Middle English hole, hol, from Old English hol (“orifice, hollow place, cavity”), from Proto-Germanic *hulą (“hollow space, cavity”) noun derivative of Proto-Germanic *hulaz (“hollow”). Cognate with Dutch hol, Walloon hol, Swedish hål, Norwegian Bokmål hull (“hole”), Norwegian Nynorsk and Faroese hol (“hole”). Compare also German Höhle. More at hollow.

hole (plural holes)

1. A hollow place or cavity; an excavation; a pit; an opening in or through a solid body, a fabric, etc.; a perforation; a rent; a fissure.

   There’s a hole in my shoe.  Her stocking has a hole in it.

   • Bible, 2 Kings xii.9:

     The priest took a chest, and bored a hole in the lid.

   • (Can we date this quote?) William Shakespeare

     the holes where eyes should be

   • (Can we date this quote?) Alfred Tennyson

     The blind walls were full of chinks and holes.

   • 1879, R[ichard] J[efferies], chapter II, in The Amateur Poacher, London: Smith, Elder, & Co., […], OCLC 752825175, page 071:

     Orion hit a rabbit once; but though sore wounded it got to the bury, and, struggling in, the arrow caught the side of the hole and was drawn out. Indeed, a nail filed sharp is not of much avail as an arrowhead; you must have it barbed, and that was a little beyond our skill.

   1. An opening in a solid.

      There’s a hole in my bucket.

2. (heading) In games.
   1. (golf) A subsurface standard-size hole, also called cup, hitting the ball into which is the object of play. Each hole, of which there are usually eighteen as the standard on a full course, is located on a prepared surface, called the green, of a particular type grass.
   2. (golf) The part of a game in which a player attempts to hit the ball into one of the holes.

      I played 18 holes yesterday.  The second hole today cost me three strokes over par.

   3. (baseball) The rear portion of the defensive team between the shortstop and the third baseman.

      The shortstop ranged deep into the hole to make the stop.

   4. (chess) A square on the board, with some positional significance, that a player does not, and cannot in future, control with a friendly pawn.
   5. (stud poker) A card (also called a hole card) dealt face down thus unknown to all but its holder; the status in which such a card is.
   6. In the game of fives, part of the floor of the court between the step and the pepperbox.
3. (archaeology, slang) An excavation pit or trench.
4. (figuratively) A weakness, a flaw

   I have found a hole in your argument.

   • 2011, Fun - We Are Young

     But between the drinks and subtle things / The holes in my apologies, you know / I’m trying hard to take it back

5. (informal) A container or receptacle.

   car hole;  brain hole

6. (physics) In semiconductors, a lack of an electron in an occupied band behaving like a positively charged particle.
7. (computing) A security vulnerability in software which can be taken advantage of by an exploit.
8. (slang anatomy) An orifice, in particular the anus. When used with shut it always refers to the mouth.

   Just shut your hole!

9. (Ireland, Scotland, particularly in the phrase "get one's hole") Sex, or a sex partner.

   Are you going out to get your hole tonight?

10. (informal, with "the") Solitary confinement, a high-security prison cell often used as punishment.
11. (slang) An undesirable place to live or visit; a hovel.

    His apartment is a hole!

12. (figuratively) Difficulty, in particular, debt.

    If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.

13. (graph theory) A chordless cycle in a graph.

• See also Thesaurus:hole
• (solitary confinement): administrative segregation, AdSeg, block (UK), cooler (UK), hotbox, lockdown, pound, SCU, security housing unit, SHU, special handling unit

• Sranan Tongo: olo

hole (third-person singular simple present holes, present participle holing, simple past and past participle holed)

1. (transitive) To make holes in (an object or surface).

   Shrapnel holed the ship's hull.

2. (transitive, by extension) To destroy.

   She completely holed the argument.

3. (intransitive) To go into a hole.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Ben Jonson to this entry?)

4. (transitive) To drive into a hole, as an animal, or a billiard ball or golf ball.
   • 1799, Sporting Magazine (volume 13, page 49)

     If the player holes the red ball, he scores three, and upon holing his adversary's ball, he gains two; and thus it frequently happens, that seven are got upon a single stroke, by caramboling and holing both balls.

   Woods holed a standard three foot putt

5. (transitive) To cut, dig, or bore a hole or holes in.

   to hole a post for the insertion of rails or bars

• holeable
• holer
• hole up

hole

1. simple past tense of hele

hole (comparative holer or more hole, superlative holest or most hole)

1. Obsolete form of whole.

   Such was the arrangement of the alphabet over the hole North

   - A grammar of the Icelandic or Old Norse tongue

• Hoel, OHLE, helo, ohel, oleh

• IPA^(key): /ˈhoːlə/

hole

1. First-person singular present of holen.
2. First-person singular subjunctive I of holen.
3. Third-person singular subjunctive I of holen.
4. Imperative singular of holen.

• IPA^(key): /ˈhóː.lèː/

hōlḕ (grade 4)

1. to relax, to enjoy oneself

hole

1. Alternative form of holy (sacred)

• “holi, adj. (2)” in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 4 August 2018.

From Old Norse hola

hole f or m (definite singular hola or holen, indefinite plural holer, definite plural holene)

1. alternative form of hule

• “hole” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

• hòle

From Old Norse hola

• IPA^(key): /²hoːlə/

hole f (definite singular hola, indefinite plural holer, definite plural holene)

1. a cave
2. a cavity (anatomy)
3. a den

• augehole

• “hole” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

From Spanish oler.

hole

1. to smell

Compare German holen, Dutch halen. Related to English haul.

hole

1. to fetch